Violence, including war, is caused ONLY by a particular kind of mental illness.
Violence is a normal function of human beings, of which everyone is capable, even you. Deny it if you want, but if your little girl is strapped to a table with Jeffrey Dahmer hovering over her with a knife ready to eat her, and you have a gun in your hand, you would shoot the bastard. That's violence in self-defense.
Another kind of violence is the hunting instinct, which is related to violence in sport. Again, perfectly natural since humans are evolved to be both hunters and gatherers.
Violence can be a symptom of mental illness, but it is not intrinsically a mental illness. To tell you the truth, I think you should be more careful in choosing your words. Putting it that way sounds too much like Soviet-style "mental illness" where if you don't believe in something ideologically, then you must be mentally ill.
Stopping violence is a problem of troubleshooting errors in the human bio-computer. This is the kind of work many Slashdot readers know. Train Slashdot readers, and we have 1,000 or 10,000 technicians to put in the field.
That's just silly. "Troubleshooting errors in human bio-computers" is basically what psychology and psychiatry is all about. And those "sciences" don't have a great track record, although they certainly help people on occasion. You can't just pop open a skull and look inside. And again, I have to say that this sounds scarily like how the Soviet Union abused psychiatric drugs in order to get people to believe "the right way".
$120,000,000 spent on doing good works in Afghanistan would, literally, put you in a position to be elected president of that very, very poor country.
$120M is peanuts and wouldn't do jack. That sounds like a lot to you and me, but it's nothing.
But let's look at the larger issue. We are talking about a soveriegn country. We can't just march in and start handing out money or build buildings. The government would say, "we'll take that money, and put it to good use". Then it would end up in a few swiss bank accounts, maybe with some token purchases for the people. This is what historically happens when you are dealing with unstable governments. You can't just dump money and make it go away.
But let's say we could get the money to the people. We buy a year's worth of food. Then what? We keep giving the money, year after year? What they need is not money dumped on them, they need an economy so they can become self-sufficient. How do we build that? Russia is making some strides in that direction, because to their credit, they allowed the US to come in and help set up capitalism and to use our money to help their economy. That's not to say that there aren't huge problems still in Russia, but at least they're on the road.
And even if we get an economy started, the people have to learn to change behavior. That's a problem Russia is dealing with after so many years of communist control. They are so used to the government making all the decisions in their lives that they either 1) are helpless, or 2) go crazy and become black marketeers.
These problems are just not as easily solved as you seem to think.
If it is Hitler we're discussing, it is necessary to recognize early that there is a potential outbreak. Warn everyone. In the early days, the Nazi movement was weak.
You dodge the question of Hitler. Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler and where did it get him? Once again: It's 1942, and we probably should have done something sooner, but we didn't. What's your solution? You have information that Jews are being gassed. What's your solution? Should we pay them to stop gassing them? Hitler doesn't care about money, Hitler wants power and territory. Should we send in psychiatrists to talk to Hitler? He doesn't want to see them. Oops! Poland just fell.
Thousands of Jews are being gassed every day. What's your non-violent solution?
I submit that when jumbo jets are flying into skyscrapers, and we know that they are actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons, that sending in the Psychiatric Troops are not the best solution to the current crisis. You can call them mentally ill if you want (and I won't disagree in the case of bin Laden), but there comes a time when you have to take practical measures to stop them. You can't reason with a rabid dog, you have to shoot him.
Naive Americans have been funding terrorism in the UK for decades. Does that mean you need to bomb Chicago to rid the world of terrorism?
You need to learn the difference between a private citizen and a country. It's one thing for a citizen to use private funds for something, and it's another thing for a government to do it.
Those actions would doubtlessly be called "terrorism" if the victims were Americans.
Apparently you also need to learn what terrorism means.
In reality, of course, it's not a global terror network. It's simply a bunch of violent, power-hungry organisations funded by naive individuals who are fooled by stirring words such as "patriotism", "history", "identity" and "freedom".
Yeah, I guess the Taliban government doesn't actually harbor terrorists and provide support. I guess the Iraqi government doesn't actually fund terrorists. It's just the citizens of that country doing it.
The IRA is funded by American organisations like the IFC. Does that mean America is sponsoring terrorism in Columbia too?
I guess you really don't know the difference between private citizens and governments. Huh. Interesting.
If you figure 3000 miles both ways, then we're talking a minimum 0.03 seconds of lag. When you figure all the overhead, plus you don't get perfect speed, that could be a 0.1 seconds. That seems pretty significant if you are doing delicate surgery. It would be even worse if it was across the world.
As John Carmack once said, "The speed of light sucks".
I think the first thing that needs to be asked about all these proposed new laws is, "Would they have done anything to stop the WTC incident had they been in effect before it?".
That's a reasonable question to ask, but I don't think it's the most important question to ask. I don't care about preventing attacks as much as I care about annihilating terrorism and winning the war. I don't think we can eliminate every suicidal maniac with a stick of dynamite, but we can destroy the world wide organization. We can eliminate their funds. We can target their leaders. Without leadership and financing, not to mention without countries that sponsor terrorism, the problem will substantially go away.
But people have the right to go to work without buildings falling on them, too. [...] That is a fallacy Jon, or at least a distortion. The implication is that people have a right to be protected from bad things by society, and I strongly disagree.
I think what Katz is saying (in his vague way) is that people expect to be able to go to work and be defended by attacks by foreign powers. The most basic function of the federal government is defense of the nation. I understand that you are focusing on the word "rights", but I think in this context, he is not referring to "inalienable rights", but to expections of competency by the government.
If I don't have the freedom to travel in my own country to a football stadium, then my other freedoms aren't worth a damn. Your freedom has already been curtailed by the terrorists in reality far more than the government ever will in theory.
I think some people need to clue that life is a bit different than a week ago. To be honest, I think that is the root of the problem here... too many people think it's a movie, and it hasn't really sunk in that it really happened, there really are evil people in the world whose only goal is to destroy democracy, and that there come times in history when the world has to stand up to evil.
Like I said, this is a common theme [money] in U.S. foreign policy.
No duh. It's called the "National Interest". One national interest was preventing Soviet Expansionism. And another national interest is making sure we get free flow of oil. I don't know about Afghanistan, but here's another "news flash": That's one of the main reasons we defended Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Iraq.
And yes, often another indirect national interest is helping struggling democracies.
People really need to clue in that economic freedom is at least as important, if not MORE important, than other freedoms. I like this quote, don't know who said it: "Without economic freedom, all other freedoms are just an intellectual exercise". The economic freedom we enjoy in the US is unbelievably taken for granted.
There are two ways you can look at it: that everything is "greed", and we're living in a "corporate state" (as Katz would probably say), or that oil is the fuel of the economy, and it's damn important for it to flow freely.
So what you're saying is, the same person who finds an email client more convenient because it hides file extensions from him is going to go into the IE options and set up their own security zone? Suuuuure....
First of all, it's the mail options, not the IE options. Second of all, I know exactly how to do it, but I don't feel the need, and the vast majority of people don't need to, either.
Again, I'm not saying that the security in Outlook is perfect, but what I am saying is that arguing that mail clients should be intentionally brain damaged so that you can't open a document from a mail message is just stupid. I want more power, but implemented in a safe way. The Linux advocate's solution is to simply take away power ("Just use pine!").
So why exactly was it necessary to support the Taliban?
Here's a novel answer for Slashdot: I don't know. And I wager, you don't either. I don't have all the intelligence reports from the time. I don't know all the factors that went into the decision. I know the overall goal was preventing Soviet expansionism.
lets not have any more of those stupid "hindsight" platitudes, lets get it right this time.
And here's another guarantee: We will make mistakes this time, also. You don't seem to have come to grips with the fact that foreign policy -- particularly in the middle east -- is an inexact science. I think it's somewhat naive to think that government has some sort of crystal ball that tells you the best course of action.
The only people worth supporting are those whose aims are a free, democratic society.
I agree, but tell me who those people are. Sometimes you have to take the long view, and take small steps toward freedom. Lets face it -- the middle east is not ready to convert to democracy. It's probably going to take another 50 to 100 years before the region moves in that direction. And who knows how many bloody conflicts. So given that, what can we do in the meantime? Do our best, and support the lessor-of-evil of the time. Even a lessor-of-evil is still less evil, particularly when there are no other options.
The clear and obvious purpose of the web page is to leave the user with the impression that the IIS product is secure.
It's a marketing page! The "clear and obvious purpose" is to tell you the features of the product in hopes that you'll buy it. I'm not sure how it should be changed to satisfy you.
Then tell me how to prevent it from fetching items from the web -- i.e., no permission for Outlook to access data via HTTP.
Hmm. There are a whole slew of options (you basically create a custom zone, and then tell Outlook to use that zone), but I don't see one for "deny downloading images" or something like that. I'm only running IE 5.0. The IE 5.5 renderer might have some additional security options.
Heck, it's not a bad idea. Submit it to Microsoft and it will probably be implemented. One thing you have to give Microsoft credit for is responding to feature requests (although many decry this as "bloat").
I did not say that they claimed it was "perfect" [...] see the URL http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evalua tion/features/web.asp
A claim of being "secure" implies a claim of "perfect security". I looked at the page, and I don't see the quote. They talk about "security features", but I don't see the claims you are talking about. Tell me the quote.
Now combine that "feature" with Microsoft's default of hiding file extensions and someone e-mails resume.doc.exe, the recipient sees resume.doc, and he double clicks on it.
Maybe that's not a feature for you, but it's certainly more user friendly to not see an extension. Does it create unintended consequences? Yes. But I don't this as a reasonable criticism, unless you also say all Macintosh names should have extensions as well.
Outlook then executes the application without so much as an "are you sure?" prompt.
Not true. Outlook gives you all sort of warning bells and whistles for a long time now.
All he does is include a unique 1x1.GIF URL.
Again, an unintended consequence of HTML e-mail. But I think it's unreasonable to say words to the effect of "Microsoft should have known that people would be able to track me by supporting HTML e-mail". Microsoft wasn't even the first to support it... they used RTF in the beginning, but everyone else used HTML (for obvious reasons, since it's a standard).
And you cannot turn off HTML fetching from your e-mail or have it ask you first.
Again, untrue. At least since Outlook 2000 (which I run), you can adjust security settings for HTML e-mail, or HTML anything else for that matter. It's actually very flexible.
These are all examples of gross security flaws that Microsoft has created.
I don't necessarily disagree that Microsoft could do more, but it's also unreasonable to imply that they've done nothing, or that we should go back to being green screen luddites. This is going to be a learning process like anything else.
Re:Why is a civilian spouting off about war?
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A New Kind of War
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One of our problems is we try to mold our allies into our own image, instead of letting them be who they are.
I'm not saying we mold them into our image, but if you believe that people have certain "inalienable rights", then I don't think it's "molding" to encourage those rights elsewhere. To make an extreme example, the world has decided that slavery is not a "cultural difference", it's a fundamental human right.
I think you can preserve a culture while also giving the population basic human rights. Of course, none of the issues are simple.
I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what you're saying, but you're going over the edge with these...
In the case of IIS, Microsoft claimed that it was secure.
Show me a quote where Microsoft claims that their software is perfect. No software is perfectly secure (e.g., wuFTP, my personal favorite that caused my system to be cracked). Show me perfect software, and I will show you a Hello World program. And don't try and tell me that OSS is perfect, I know better.
In the case of their e-mail client (Outlook/Outlook Express), who in their right mind would write an e-mail client that executed code (vbscript, etc.) enclosed in an e-mail?
I would. Just because a lot of people want to live in a world of green screens and monofonts doesn't mean everyone wants to live in the past. I like being able to open a document that someone e-mails me without having to save it off somewhere.
Not to say that these things shouldn't have better security, but there is absolutely no question that mail readers should allow attachments to be executed. Personally, I would like to see a "sandbox" concept applied to opening e-mail attachments.
Sorry about that. I'm not the biggest Gandhi fan, but I'll try and spell the name right.:)
You armed the mujahedeen against the former USSR (The CIA did it), and now you have Laden and the Taliban sticking it up your arses.
It's an imperfect world, and hindsite is 20/20. Sometimes you have to take the lessor of the evils of the time (See Iran/Iraq war) and do the best you can. And it's hard to imagine a bigger evil than the former Soviet Union.
Re:Why is a civilian spouting off about war?
on
A New Kind of War
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· Score: 2
It worked pretty well back in the late 1700s for the United States.
It might be interesting to try and extract a promise from the opposing side to institute freedom and Democracy. Perhaps even to adopt a draft constitution.
Re:Why is a civilian spouting off about war?
on
A New Kind of War
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· Score: 2
I hate to defend Katz, but after re-reading his article after reading yours, I don't seem him advocating strategy, only asking questions. That said, I agree with you that there are too many armchair Pattons (and WAY too many armchair Ghandis).
Personally, I think if we want to win a war in Afghanistan, we need to massively arm the opposing side who know the terrain and how to win.
"Unsavory" informants
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A New Kind of War
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I have to admit I was astounded that I heard that current US policy was that informants could not have a criminal background, or some such nonsense (anyone know what the standard actually is?). I mean, who the hell expects upstanding citizens in criminal organizations?
I think that is definitely one law that needs to be reviewed.
No, I have a Linux box as my server, which is on the Internet using my cable modem's IP address. I have my own domains that I use, which used to point to my cable's IP address. The nice thing about my cable company is that they give you a static IP. My life was great, until they blocked HTTP and SMTP. Of course, my other computers are using NAT to the Linux box.
I should also add that I've considered setting up sendmail on the remote box and doing relaying, but I don't really want to take up too many resources on that box (it's not really mine, and the owner is doing me a favor). I would rather do it as just a passthrough.
Just when I was hoping my cable company would unblock my HTTP port (which they said was "temporary"). Unfortunately, this will give them more fuel to make it permanent.
The HTTP port doesn't bug me as much as they have also blocked my mail port.
Question for sendmail experts out there, related to this: I'm currently using another system to tunnel my mail to my box on my cable modem. It works great, but a side effect is that it looks like all mail is coming from "localhost", which defeats the anti-Spam measures. Of course, it didn't take long for the cockroaches to find my mail server and use it for relaying. I've been fighting it by blocking specific subnets, but it's an annoying battle. Any suggestions?
I get the feeling that dubya is just window dressing and Powell and Chaney & co are the ones actually calling the shots.
That's simply absurd. Can't Bush get any credit around here? On the one hand, many decry the blow-dried politician who looks good on TV, yet is totally ineffectual behind the scenes. Here we have someone who admittedly is limited when it comes to speech-making (although his address at the prayer service was very good), but who has clearly been decisive behind the scenes.
If Bush was as much of a baffoon as people thought, we would see people running back and forth making useless gestures, launching cruise missiles without regard, and generally making empty statements. Say what you want about Bush, but his statements have NOT been empty, regardless of the delivery.
Why can't the guy talk about politics if he wants to?
He certainly can, if he wants to. But we should always remember that he is "just a programmer", like anyone else. His opinion means about as much as joe the truck driver's opinion (and apparently is just as informed).
Eliminate aid to Israel, allow the destruction of Israel, Let Iraq take over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, allow him to become king of the United States of the Middle East, take your pick.
Slashdot Mirror
Violence, including war, is caused ONLY by a particular kind of mental illness.
Violence is a normal function of human beings, of which everyone is capable, even you. Deny it if you want, but if your little girl is strapped to a table with Jeffrey Dahmer hovering over her with a knife ready to eat her, and you have a gun in your hand, you would shoot the bastard. That's violence in self-defense.
Another kind of violence is the hunting instinct, which is related to violence in sport. Again, perfectly natural since humans are evolved to be both hunters and gatherers.
Violence can be a symptom of mental illness, but it is not intrinsically a mental illness. To tell you the truth, I think you should be more careful in choosing your words. Putting it that way sounds too much like Soviet-style "mental illness" where if you don't believe in something ideologically, then you must be mentally ill.
Stopping violence is a problem of troubleshooting errors in the human bio-computer. This is the kind of work many Slashdot readers know. Train Slashdot readers, and we have 1,000 or 10,000 technicians to put in the field.
That's just silly. "Troubleshooting errors in human bio-computers" is basically what psychology and psychiatry is all about. And those "sciences" don't have a great track record, although they certainly help people on occasion. You can't just pop open a skull and look inside. And again, I have to say that this sounds scarily like how the Soviet Union abused psychiatric drugs in order to get people to believe "the right way".
$120,000,000 spent on doing good works in Afghanistan would, literally, put you in a position to be elected president of that very, very poor country.
$120M is peanuts and wouldn't do jack. That sounds like a lot to you and me, but it's nothing.
But let's look at the larger issue. We are talking about a soveriegn country. We can't just march in and start handing out money or build buildings. The government would say, "we'll take that money, and put it to good use". Then it would end up in a few swiss bank accounts, maybe with some token purchases for the people. This is what historically happens when you are dealing with unstable governments. You can't just dump money and make it go away.
But let's say we could get the money to the people. We buy a year's worth of food. Then what? We keep giving the money, year after year? What they need is not money dumped on them, they need an economy so they can become self-sufficient. How do we build that? Russia is making some strides in that direction, because to their credit, they allowed the US to come in and help set up capitalism and to use our money to help their economy. That's not to say that there aren't huge problems still in Russia, but at least they're on the road.
And even if we get an economy started, the people have to learn to change behavior. That's a problem Russia is dealing with after so many years of communist control. They are so used to the government making all the decisions in their lives that they either 1) are helpless, or 2) go crazy and become black marketeers.
These problems are just not as easily solved as you seem to think.
If it is Hitler we're discussing, it is necessary to recognize early that there is a potential outbreak. Warn everyone. In the early days, the Nazi movement was weak.
You dodge the question of Hitler. Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler and where did it get him? Once again: It's 1942, and we probably should have done something sooner, but we didn't. What's your solution? You have information that Jews are being gassed. What's your solution? Should we pay them to stop gassing them? Hitler doesn't care about money, Hitler wants power and territory. Should we send in psychiatrists to talk to Hitler? He doesn't want to see them. Oops! Poland just fell.
Thousands of Jews are being gassed every day. What's your non-violent solution?
I submit that when jumbo jets are flying into skyscrapers, and we know that they are actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons, that sending in the Psychiatric Troops are not the best solution to the current crisis. You can call them mentally ill if you want (and I won't disagree in the case of bin Laden), but there comes a time when you have to take practical measures to stop them. You can't reason with a rabid dog, you have to shoot him.
Naive Americans have been funding terrorism in the UK for decades. Does that mean you need to bomb Chicago to rid the world of terrorism?
You need to learn the difference between a private citizen and a country. It's one thing for a citizen to use private funds for something, and it's another thing for a government to do it.
Those actions would doubtlessly be called "terrorism" if the victims were Americans.
Apparently you also need to learn what terrorism means.
In reality, of course, it's not a global terror network. It's simply a bunch of violent, power-hungry organisations funded by naive individuals who are fooled by stirring words such as "patriotism", "history", "identity" and "freedom".
Yeah, I guess the Taliban government doesn't actually harbor terrorists and provide support. I guess the Iraqi government doesn't actually fund terrorists. It's just the citizens of that country doing it.
The IRA is funded by American organisations like the IFC. Does that mean America is sponsoring terrorism in Columbia too?
I guess you really don't know the difference between private citizens and governments. Huh. Interesting.
Just out of curiosity, it's World War II. What is your answer to Hitler's violence? How do you think it should have been solved?
If you figure 3000 miles both ways, then we're talking a minimum 0.03 seconds of lag. When you figure all the overhead, plus you don't get perfect speed, that could be a 0.1 seconds. That seems pretty significant if you are doing delicate surgery. It would be even worse if it was across the world.
As John Carmack once said, "The speed of light sucks".
I think the first thing that needs to be asked about all these proposed new laws is, "Would they have done anything to stop the WTC incident had they been in effect before it?".
That's a reasonable question to ask, but I don't think it's the most important question to ask. I don't care about preventing attacks as much as I care about annihilating terrorism and winning the war. I don't think we can eliminate every suicidal maniac with a stick of dynamite, but we can destroy the world wide organization. We can eliminate their funds. We can target their leaders. Without leadership and financing, not to mention without countries that sponsor terrorism, the problem will substantially go away.
But people have the right to go to work without buildings falling on them, too. [...] That is a fallacy Jon, or at least a distortion. The implication is that people have a right to be protected from bad things by society, and I strongly disagree.
I think what Katz is saying (in his vague way) is that people expect to be able to go to work and be defended by attacks by foreign powers. The most basic function of the federal government is defense of the nation. I understand that you are focusing on the word "rights", but I think in this context, he is not referring to "inalienable rights", but to expections of competency by the government.
If I don't have the freedom to travel in my own country to a football stadium, then my other freedoms aren't worth a damn. Your freedom has already been curtailed by the terrorists in reality far more than the government ever will in theory.
I think some people need to clue that life is a bit different than a week ago. To be honest, I think that is the root of the problem here... too many people think it's a movie, and it hasn't really sunk in that it really happened, there really are evil people in the world whose only goal is to destroy democracy, and that there come times in history when the world has to stand up to evil.
Like I said, this is a common theme [money] in U.S. foreign policy.
No duh. It's called the "National Interest". One national interest was preventing Soviet Expansionism. And another national interest is making sure we get free flow of oil. I don't know about Afghanistan, but here's another "news flash": That's one of the main reasons we defended Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Iraq.
And yes, often another indirect national interest is helping struggling democracies.
People really need to clue in that economic freedom is at least as important, if not MORE important, than other freedoms. I like this quote, don't know who said it: "Without economic freedom, all other freedoms are just an intellectual exercise". The economic freedom we enjoy in the US is unbelievably taken for granted.
There are two ways you can look at it: that everything is "greed", and we're living in a "corporate state" (as Katz would probably say), or that oil is the fuel of the economy, and it's damn important for it to flow freely.
So what happened to "truth in advertising"?
Name something on that page that is not true.
So what you're saying is, the same person who finds an email client more convenient because it hides file extensions from him is going to go into the IE options and set up their own security zone? Suuuuure....
First of all, it's the mail options, not the IE options. Second of all, I know exactly how to do it, but I don't feel the need, and the vast majority of people don't need to, either.
Again, I'm not saying that the security in Outlook is perfect, but what I am saying is that arguing that mail clients should be intentionally brain damaged so that you can't open a document from a mail message is just stupid. I want more power, but implemented in a safe way. The Linux advocate's solution is to simply take away power ("Just use pine!").
So why exactly was it necessary to support the Taliban?
Here's a novel answer for Slashdot: I don't know. And I wager, you don't either. I don't have all the intelligence reports from the time. I don't know all the factors that went into the decision. I know the overall goal was preventing Soviet expansionism.
lets not have any more of those stupid "hindsight" platitudes, lets get it right this time.
And here's another guarantee: We will make mistakes this time, also. You don't seem to have come to grips with the fact that foreign policy -- particularly in the middle east -- is an inexact science. I think it's somewhat naive to think that government has some sort of crystal ball that tells you the best course of action.
The only people worth supporting are those whose aims are a free, democratic society.
I agree, but tell me who those people are. Sometimes you have to take the long view, and take small steps toward freedom. Lets face it -- the middle east is not ready to convert to democracy. It's probably going to take another 50 to 100 years before the region moves in that direction. And who knows how many bloody conflicts. So given that, what can we do in the meantime? Do our best, and support the lessor-of-evil of the time. Even a lessor-of-evil is still less evil, particularly when there are no other options.
The clear and obvious purpose of the web page is to leave the user with the impression that the IIS product is secure.
It's a marketing page! The "clear and obvious purpose" is to tell you the features of the product in hopes that you'll buy it. I'm not sure how it should be changed to satisfy you.
Then tell me how to prevent it from fetching items from the web -- i.e., no permission for Outlook to access data via HTTP.
Hmm. There are a whole slew of options (you basically create a custom zone, and then tell Outlook to use that zone), but I don't see one for "deny downloading images" or something like that. I'm only running IE 5.0. The IE 5.5 renderer might have some additional security options.
Heck, it's not a bad idea. Submit it to Microsoft and it will probably be implemented. One thing you have to give Microsoft credit for is responding to feature requests (although many decry this as "bloat").
I did not say that they claimed it was "perfect" [...] see the URL http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evalua tion/features/web.asp
A claim of being "secure" implies a claim of "perfect security". I looked at the page, and I don't see the quote. They talk about "security features", but I don't see the claims you are talking about. Tell me the quote.
Now combine that "feature" with Microsoft's default of hiding file extensions and someone e-mails resume.doc.exe, the recipient sees resume.doc, and he double clicks on it.
Maybe that's not a feature for you, but it's certainly more user friendly to not see an extension. Does it create unintended consequences? Yes. But I don't this as a reasonable criticism, unless you also say all Macintosh names should have extensions as well.
Outlook then executes the application without so much as an "are you sure?" prompt.
Not true. Outlook gives you all sort of warning bells and whistles for a long time now.
All he does is include a unique 1x1 .GIF URL.
Again, an unintended consequence of HTML e-mail. But I think it's unreasonable to say words to the effect of "Microsoft should have known that people would be able to track me by supporting HTML e-mail". Microsoft wasn't even the first to support it ... they used RTF in the beginning, but everyone else used HTML (for obvious reasons, since it's a standard).
And you cannot turn off HTML fetching from your e-mail or have it ask you first.
Again, untrue. At least since Outlook 2000 (which I run), you can adjust security settings for HTML e-mail, or HTML anything else for that matter. It's actually very flexible.
These are all examples of gross security flaws that Microsoft has created.
I don't necessarily disagree that Microsoft could do more, but it's also unreasonable to imply that they've done nothing, or that we should go back to being green screen luddites. This is going to be a learning process like anything else.
One of our problems is we try to mold our allies into our own image, instead of letting them be who they are.
I'm not saying we mold them into our image, but if you believe that people have certain "inalienable rights", then I don't think it's "molding" to encourage those rights elsewhere. To make an extreme example, the world has decided that slavery is not a "cultural difference", it's a fundamental human right.
I think you can preserve a culture while also giving the population basic human rights. Of course, none of the issues are simple.
I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what you're saying, but you're going over the edge with these...
In the case of IIS, Microsoft claimed that it was secure.
Show me a quote where Microsoft claims that their software is perfect. No software is perfectly secure (e.g., wuFTP, my personal favorite that caused my system to be cracked). Show me perfect software, and I will show you a Hello World program. And don't try and tell me that OSS is perfect, I know better.
In the case of their e-mail client (Outlook/Outlook Express), who in their right mind would write an e-mail client that executed code (vbscript, etc.) enclosed in an e-mail?
I would. Just because a lot of people want to live in a world of green screens and monofonts doesn't mean everyone wants to live in the past. I like being able to open a document that someone e-mails me without having to save it off somewhere.
Not to say that these things shouldn't have better security, but there is absolutely no question that mail readers should allow attachments to be executed. Personally, I would like to see a "sandbox" concept applied to opening e-mail attachments.
Its Gandhi, not Ghandi.
Sorry about that. I'm not the biggest Gandhi fan, but I'll try and spell the name right. :)
You armed the mujahedeen against the former USSR (The CIA did it), and now you have Laden and the Taliban sticking it up your arses.
It's an imperfect world, and hindsite is 20/20. Sometimes you have to take the lessor of the evils of the time (See Iran/Iraq war) and do the best you can. And it's hard to imagine a bigger evil than the former Soviet Union.
It worked pretty well back in the late 1700s for the United States.
It might be interesting to try and extract a promise from the opposing side to institute freedom and Democracy. Perhaps even to adopt a draft constitution.
I hate to defend Katz, but after re-reading his article after reading yours, I don't seem him advocating strategy, only asking questions. That said, I agree with you that there are too many armchair Pattons (and WAY too many armchair Ghandis).
Personally, I think if we want to win a war in Afghanistan, we need to massively arm the opposing side who know the terrain and how to win.
I have to admit I was astounded that I heard that current US policy was that informants could not have a criminal background, or some such nonsense (anyone know what the standard actually is?). I mean, who the hell expects upstanding citizens in criminal organizations?
I think that is definitely one law that needs to be reviewed.
No, I have a Linux box as my server, which is on the Internet using my cable modem's IP address. I have my own domains that I use, which used to point to my cable's IP address. The nice thing about my cable company is that they give you a static IP. My life was great, until they blocked HTTP and SMTP. Of course, my other computers are using NAT to the Linux box.
I should also add that I've considered setting up sendmail on the remote box and doing relaying, but I don't really want to take up too many resources on that box (it's not really mine, and the owner is doing me a favor). I would rather do it as just a passthrough.
Just when I was hoping my cable company would unblock my HTTP port (which they said was "temporary"). Unfortunately, this will give them more fuel to make it permanent.
The HTTP port doesn't bug me as much as they have also blocked my mail port.
Question for sendmail experts out there, related to this: I'm currently using another system to tunnel my mail to my box on my cable modem. It works great, but a side effect is that it looks like all mail is coming from "localhost", which defeats the anti-Spam measures. Of course, it didn't take long for the cockroaches to find my mail server and use it for relaying. I've been fighting it by blocking specific subnets, but it's an annoying battle. Any suggestions?
I get the feeling that dubya is just window dressing and Powell and Chaney & co are the ones actually calling the shots.
That's simply absurd. Can't Bush get any credit around here? On the one hand, many decry the blow-dried politician who looks good on TV, yet is totally ineffectual behind the scenes. Here we have someone who admittedly is limited when it comes to speech-making (although his address at the prayer service was very good), but who has clearly been decisive behind the scenes.
If Bush was as much of a baffoon as people thought, we would see people running back and forth making useless gestures, launching cruise missiles without regard, and generally making empty statements. Say what you want about Bush, but his statements have NOT been empty, regardless of the delivery.
Why can't the guy talk about politics if he wants to?
He certainly can, if he wants to. But we should always remember that he is "just a programmer", like anyone else. His opinion means about as much as joe the truck driver's opinion (and apparently is just as informed).
Perhaps, but once the "A list" was conquered, he would have moved on to the "B list".
Eliminate aid to Israel, allow the destruction of Israel, Let Iraq take over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, allow him to become king of the United States of the Middle East, take your pick.